Stacking Opinions

Just a few quick notes on the House Judiciary Committee hearing held today, Dec. 4.   I am not going to again go into lengthy discussion about the ridiculous nature of this Impeachment Show, but rather simply reflect on what we saw today.

First, today we saw not just opinion vs. opinion, but rather opinion based upon opinion vs. opinion based upon opinion.  That is, we had four law professors who have heard no evidence but who have heard or read opinions of others about what they feel about various actions of the President, give their legal opinions about whether those opinions they read/heard about those facts create a basis for impeachment.  Yes, it is ridiculous, isn’t it?

Let’s understand:  lawyers and especially law professors enjoy examining the law and rendering their opinions about it.  OPINION is the operative word here.  In the law, issues are issues because they have more than one possible solution.  Legal minds form opinions and put that opinion forward.  It may or may not be the opinion that will be adopted in a particular case.  Think of any simple court case.  The plaintiff or prosecution puts forth its opinion that the defendant has done something wrong.  The defense puts forth its opinion that defendant is innocent or not at fault.  Opinion vs. opinion.  A legal decision – guilt, acquittal, liability, or no liability will require fact, not opinion.

Opinions cannot be proven.  They are simply one person’s view about events.  They are not necessarily right or wrong.  As one of my law professors was fond of saying, there are no right answers, only wrong ones.  The wrong ones he referred to were those that were not well supported by facts and by clear and logical reasoning.

Legal scholars will not all agree on the meaning of a law nor on the proper resolution of a case.  This is why, for example, so many Supreme Court decisions are not unanimous.  More than one well-reasoned interpretation can be put forward.  So, while a law professor may sound very authoritative in proclaiming his or her opinion, it is not a fact, it is not a law, and it is not even necessarily correct.  If not grounded in evidence or if not soundly and logically supported, it might very well be wrong.

At the hearing today, however, we saw many Democrats asking their witnesses what was their opinion about the law (remember, that is not a definitive definition but simply one opinion about the law), then taking that law as fact, then asking the witness if the “facts” as defined by one of the earlier Intelligence Committee witnesses’ opinions, met the current witness’s interpretation of “impeachment.”  So, we have the Democrats starting with an opinion and calling it fact, then taking a professorial interpretation of law and calling it actual law, and then getting a professor to assert that the fact/opinion that he has only been told about meets his definition of law (which is really just his interpretation/opinion) and using that as a basis to impeach the President.  Yes, it really is that ridiculous.

But what troubled me today more than anything is what the appearance of these four professors told me about the future of the law and justice in this country.  Three of the four have well documented biases against the President and have been actively and monetarily involved in various campaigns against President Trump since he has been in office.  They clearly were letting their own biases color and determine their legal opinions about impeachment.  If that is what they are teaching their students, then there is little hope for the future of fairness and justice.  Witness Turley was the only one of the four who was able to render objective opinions that happened to not favor impeachment even though he himself is not a Trump supporter and is critical of many of his policies and actions.

It is that ability to divorce one’s own feelings from one’s legal analysis that is critical to justice.  To be clear, Professor Turley’s opinions are, just as those of the other witnesses, nothing more than opinion.  They are not fact.  They are not law.  But the difference is that they are based on objective examination of the relevant source materials and supported by sound legal reasoning.  While I am sure that the other professor-witnesses are also capable of such reasoning, it was fairly clear that they had not engaged in such objective analysis in this case.  There may well be logical support for their opinions, but that was lacking here because those opinions were so obviously based upon their personal hatred of President Trump. 

Professor Turley urged us all to “divide rage from reason.”  That is, there is so much hate that it is preventing the reasoned approach that is necessary for an impeachment consideration.  But it goes beyond that.  The rage, the hate that consumes the Democrats is preventing a reasoned approach to nearly anything in this country and especially to the continuation of our form of government.

So, I was deeply saddened to see the hatred overcome the three Democrat professor witnesses whose credentials should have made them able to distinguish rage from reason and hold heir personal opinions at bay while considering scholarly legal analysis, especially when that analysis may be used to affect the future of our nation and whether or not an election should be overturned.

These are legal scholars.  I expect them to understand the gravity of the undertaking when they are asked to testify about impeachment.  I expect them to understand that when they engage in scholarly discourse about the Constitution or law or past cases that they are expressing their opinions only and that they are not judges rendering decisions on facts that they have not even examined.  Yet if they are willing to accept and engage in such over biased reasoning then Lady Justice has surely lost her blindfold and the concept of a fair and unbiased hearing within the justice system is at serious risk.  This is simply not OK – for those who seek justice and for our Country which depends upon our judicial branch of government as one of the three pillars that sustain us and our freedoms.

So, the Impeachers have now built a case by stacking opinion upon opinion with no clear factual foundation.  Such a structure must surely collapse – hopefully before it takes the entire country with it.

The Impeachers also seem to be perhaps moving away from their focus group determined term of “bribery” and back toward the Mueller report – the report that took 2 years along with taxpayer dollars to investigate another ludicrous charge.  It was determined there was no obstruction there.  Yet obstruction seems to be back again.  Along with idiotic analogies to Nixon, suggestions that the President wants to be king (using the President’s minor son as the butt of a joke about this), and most anything else the President has done or said as meeting their witnesses’ opined definition of impeachment. 

Really, the only thing that is constant, the only thing that is substantiated by clear and convincing evidence, is the continuing rage and hatred of the Democrats toward Donald Trump.  It is time that everyone follows Professor Turley’s advice and “divide rage from reason.”  Then, and only then, can we move forward with the business of the country.